Smiles from the Land of Twilight
by LittleBlueNayru
Summary: They haunt him.  And for once, Link wonders if sealing away the Twili wasn't such a bad idea.  Warnings: contains spoilers and gore; might deserve an M rating.


Disclaimer: I don't own Legend of Zelda. Or Higurashi, the anime that inspired this oneshot.

Uhm, okay, I have no idea what's wrong with me lately, seeing as I'm an established Humor writer and think my Horror sucks. But, I recently got hooked on an anime called "Higurashi no Naku Koro ni" (Or "Higurashi When They Cry" in English... I think. I don't really care.). Anyway, it's got the most awesome opening song ever, and lots of wonderful pyscho killers which I find entertaining, and that alone should clue me in to the fact that I probably need therapy. Ah, well, I'll worry about that another day.

Anyway, this was also blatantly inspired by the Palace of Twilight in Zelda. Now, when I think of the Zant Boss Battle, only one word comes to mind to describe it: _FAIL._

Zant had all these freaking amazing abilities in the game. He created a sword out of nothing, he turned an entire province of Hyrule into Twilight and back, he suspended Midna in the air, yaddah yaddah... Point is, even if Link had the Light Sword, my personal headcanon says he would have gotten his ass whipped anyway. And Midna could have done so much more in the game with her abilites, so this is about the _true _battle that should have taken place. With mild Higurashi glory, in the form of the classic pyscho smile.

Warnings: contains spoilers for the game, swearing, mild amounts of graphic gore, an extremely long run-on sentence near the end, and an attempt at writing Horror that probably ended up melting into a pile of incomprehensible goo.

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Smiles from the Land of Twilight

Leers. Smirks. Malicious grins. Sneers. In all his time with her, Link doubted that he had ever seen Midna with a smile on her face that held only happiness and compassion; whenever her lips turned up, he could be sure that something sinister lifted them, something malevolent with ill wishes, however mild the curse it cast.

Her first grin appeared before him, an unwelcome spot of light against the blackness of the dungeons beneath Hyrule Castle. When her slitted eye shot open wide, accompanied by an unsympathetic smile, a flood of masked emotions threatened to drown Link's mind; a rage, barely restrained, sadistic glee the only thing masking it. In finding her wolf, Midna thought not of her servant but of her opponent, with only one thing on her mind: victory.

A patriot to the end.

Her every muffled snicker found fuel in his mistakes, his injuries, as he carried her to the top of a castle tower while battling demonic shadow compositions and the fury of wind and rain; every grin that made its way to her face sprung from violent fantasies playing in her head, neverending comedies in her mind. For each monster he defeated, a leer, for every injury he sustained fighting them, a giggle. Link idly wondered about Midna's age; her childish cruelty conflicted with her steadfast drive toward a single goal. He often found himself not caring about her predicament when reminded of her carelessness toward his own, and yet he still found himself racing frantically to Zelda when she got her just desserts, blatantly ignoring that spiteful little self in the back of his mind that raged at him, _she deserves this, she deserves this and you know it, why bother helping her if she brings you nothing but pain and torment?_

He didn't know.

Midna was by no means a good friend. She was barely any kind of friend at all. She was simply a victim of circumstance, however pushy and snotty a one, and a companion as unwilling as he. While traversing the realms of Hyrule cloaked in her element, she drove him ruthlessly, never allowing him to rest, pushing him onward with vicious jests and eerily casual taunts; when he restored his precious land to its rightful order, she hid away in blackness, a silent, cold companion, popping up only to offer advice or tease him. With that condescending smirk perpetually seated on her face. He spent the frigid nights alone beneath solitary trees on the fields; he wandered with nothing but his shadow – though inhabited – during the days.

After Zant, the only change he truly noted in Midna was the sudden lack of jibes directed at him. She reserved her snickers of disdain for the enemies he conquered, and while some might have considered it a pleasant change, Link did not know what to think of it. He wondered if her near-death encounter drove her transformation, and, if so, whether to consider it selfish or not. She had almost died, and Zelda had given up her own life to save Midna's, and only then did she begin to show kindness for her Hero companion, only then did she grant him smirks filled with benign mirth instead of spite and scorn. But even then, these glances only came about because of conspiratorial thoughts; oh, what the two of us shall do to Zant and Ganondorf; the motherfuckers will never see it coming, won't even have time to say "Oh shit" before we pound them into the dust, just think of it, Link, won't it be marvelous fun to see Zant screaming in pain beneath your blade? Or Ganondorf, his oh-so-powerful "god?" Won't it be delightful to dissect them with your precious Master Sword and see if we can find what makes their hearts so black inside before their souls vanish from this life?

Link gallivanted around Hyrule slaying every foe he came across because of patriotism, like Midna. But not vengeance. Midna gallivanted around Hyrule watching Link slay every foe that crossed his path for both her country and her satisfaction. Link supposed that her heart was neither gold nor obsidian. Neither light nor dark. Maybe Twilight-colored.

Shortly after entering the throne room of Zant –the throne room Midna fought to reclaim– he found himself second-guessing that conclusion.

A sarcastic comment from Midna. Voice dripping with barely-hidden rage and untameable, frightening glee. The thought of Zant, broken and powerless beneath her, fueled a sick mirth within.

Equally malicious counterattacks from Zant, saturated with deadly insults and accusations fueled by insanity. Link wondered if all Twili smirked like those two.

A shriek, a scream. Zant momentarily losing his cool, plunging into what he must have thought to be a captivating soliloquy. And then the Usurper King rose above the Twilit throne and, with a wave of his magic-laced arms, declared the battle begun.

Link readied his light-filled sword for an attack that never came. Midna flung herself at Zant with a glowing Twilit sword, whipping it ferociously at Zant's night-hued own, reddish sparks spewing from their magic-forged blades. Neither held their swords' handles, preferring to make use of their arms in a silent battle; Zant flung himself around haphazardly as he danced along with his blade, complete with his cacophonous chorus of screams, Midna twirled in midair with lazy shrugs as she made a show of repelling his attacks with ease, laughter tinged with the high of battle.

All of a sudden, the strange hand that sometimes sprouted from her fiery ponytail erupted to life and dove down into the shadow beneath her. A moment of suspense, a shuffling of feet, and Zant was plummeting through the floor, turning black as shadows, vanishing into the floor only to get dragged back through Midna's shadow by her hand-hair and mercilessly flung at the nearest wall. Had he not buffered his body with magic and fought against the momentum propelling him forward, he would have hit the way with a sickening cracking of stone and bones and dropped to the ground a limp rag doll. As it were, he still collided with a hefty thump, but wasted no time in halting Midna's follow up with a ball of hateful red magic. Much like Link had so long ago at the Spring, Midna shuddered to a stop in midair, the building energy almost visible, before getting thrown away just as roughly, sailing through the air before connecting painfully with the ground. The red splinters of Zant's magic ball followed her as they exploded to the floor, immediately shivering with malice, contorting into dark shapes. Desecrators of darkness more disgusting than Twilit vermin swarmed her, jagged incisors digging for flesh. Fighting through teeth and pathetic whimpers, Midna forced herself up, closing her eyes to her pain and surroundings. Her eye snapping open was the only visible sign of her magic releasing, filthy shriveled legs and pointed noses of rats flying outward from her, eyes loosened from sockets rolling bloodily on the floor, staining the dark-light-bluish-navy stones the deepest shade of black.

The Twilight Princess did not remain standing regally amid her shower of gore. In a flash, she sprung high, high into the air, only to jettison down, propelled by magical means. Touchdown on the blood and fragments of rats before veering, bouncing to the left, now wheel around, another bound into the air, vanish into shadows, where is she, Zant blindsided by a flash of fury from the left. Sustained by Midna, one of the huge pillars wrenched itself out of the throne room foundations and threw itself at Zant who barely dodged, left wrist snagging and snapping from the weights against it.

A furious noise barely sane enough to be a scream tore from Zant's ragged throat as he lifted himself, jumping up, roaring with fury as he suddenly grew, grew, grew, and suddenly he was towering over Midna and Link, a behemoth barely able to fit in the throne room, mask colliding with the ceiling and walls and denting them severely. Link wondered if the place would cave and silence them forever under countless heavy stones. Midna wondered how easily the stupid bastard would fall as a brainless oversized oaf. Gigantic arms flung in every direction, monstrous feet stomping on every surface they found, rocking the entirety of the Palace, flattening the intricate carvings on the Twilit Throne. Link and Midna dashed around, oblivious to each other, attempting to find shelter from the enormous footfalls crushing every other surface in the room, denting the walls into shapes only seen in nightmares. Stopping suddenly, Midna extended her hand-hair once again, flew behind a gigantic foot that had just tried to squish her hero companion, and lashed at the tendons and ligaments she knew could be severed there.

Zant howled madly, clutching his ruined foot while hopping on his other, shrinking and shrinking unconsciously as he did so, Midna's demonic giggles echoing ominously in the deformed room. Link's feared Ball-and-Chain somehow found itself in her hands, and with horrifically refined skill, she sent the dully spiked ball spinning lethally around her head, launching it at Zant's diminutive form, crushing half his lungs and shattering his ribcage as he slammed against an unfortunate wall.

His shrieking howl of pain froze Midna where she hovered and Link where he spectated, so like a ReDead's empty screams. Cue another miraculous fit of jumping, and the rocking of the very throne room itself! The pillars still standing in the room shook violently, saplings in a spring gale. Was it a blessing that the throne room and the floor itself were so bare, or did the height of the tower above all the rest of the Palace seal the fate of this battle under the rubble that would soon bury it? Only Link could think of such things, because Zant jumped around spastically on useless feet, screaming at the top of his bratty shattered lungs, intent on dragging the Twilight Princess to her doom even if it put him in the crossfire and Midna hovered uncertainly in the air as Zant pouted and the walls began to grow hair-thin spiderweb cracks on the surfaces, wondering what in the names of all her deities to do. Whatever her own omnipotent gods commanded became the least of her concerns as a force flung her against the wall with her arms bound in place, much as the had before. Only this time, they knew no mercy. Midna gasped, first with fear and then with pain, as her arms dragged themselves in all the wrong directions, right arm to the left and left to the right, behind her helpless head, pulling and burning as they ground against her shoulder blades, bone on bone, and then suddenly reversed directions at the elbow. Forearms twisted back, elbows crunching and snapping, Midna screaming and thrashing and crying, Zant laughing and dancing the mockery of a dance as he pounded impossibly strong feet into solid stone floors that gradually yielded to his great might that all would recognize.

Through a haze of white white pain Midna shattered the bonds ripping her upper body apart and, with pure strength of will, dragged her long, shattered arms back into their original positions, pained grimaces escaping her. She worked fast, if out of nothing but fear, and though her hands were now almost useless as weapons, she spun round and round at a frightening pace, arms whipping up by the sheer power of centripetal force, snaps and cracks filling the air, an occasional gasp among them. With the loss of her arms, Midna released any sign of control over her powers. The ends of her hands glowed red-and-orange, dark balls of energy shooting out ceaselessly, firing in all directions, charring stone and Zant. Drawing a blade once more, she charged him, somehow, wicked blade gleaming in the soft lights of the rapidly deteriorating throne room. Recognizing the attack, Zant responded in kind, summoning for himself two bloodthirsty cleavers and beginning his own dance, spinning out of control on an axis he threatened to utterly rip apart. The tops launched at each other with mindless bloodlust, and with a deafening _CLANG_ they connected, shrieks and dings of metal on metal, scraping and sparking once again. The usurper kind, with arms still functioning, fought for control in the hurricane of blades with surprisingly defines slashes and hacks, but against Midna's frantic volley of magic and steel, order was but an illusion amid a neverending storm of hate, blood, black.

How long they kept up this game, they never knew. All they knew was smashing and clashing, fights full of blades and slamming against walls, slashes deep into the rock, heedless of the shuddering of the walls. They spun into each other, broke apart, twirled with a deadly beauty in the mockery of a dance, sung with blades and snarls in unison, a choir of hate.

And as the partners separated once again, Zant colliding painfully yet again with a wall -and shattering it yet further-, sinking to the ground below it, incidentally the ornate Twilight Throne, Midna suddenly _stopped_, mad spiraling halted in the blink of an eye, and in a way it was even more terrible that her mindless spinning that Link found himself unable to stop with body or with voice, a helpless spectator to this morbid festival. Her helm lay crooked on her head, exposing flaming hair over her visible eye, the covering over the opposite eye dangerously low on her chin.

Shadows cast over half her face, yet illuminated by the half-light in a way that promised emptiness and wishes of suicide.

Orange on black, fire and ashes in the night, unholy enough.

Wide lantern eye, so wide it fit to burst in a spray of blood, unholy enough.

Dilated pupils, barely visible in the yellow white and pinprick orange-maroon iris. Unholy enough.

A mouth spread wider than Link though possible, a neat row of sharpened teeth hungry for the kill all displayed beautifully in the now eerie-blue light, breathing heavily, high-pitched, _screaming, laughing, gasping_.

His body refused to respond.

This wasn't Midna. Couldn't be.

Sure, she took a little too much pleasure in others' pain, but _this_...

This was demonic. Sacrilege. Blasphemy.

For the first time, he agreed with the Goddesses' decision to banish her people.

Midna, floating there, with broken arms laying limp and crooked at her sides, Fused Shadow jostled into hateful asymmetry, staring at Zant with eyes that did not see and _laughing laughing laughing_ at him and his broken arms and bloodied front and singed robes, screaming with joy at his bruises, his blood, his bones that shot out at angles that made Link recoil in disgust, reveling so filthily in his pain.

Link pitied him.

Link feared Midna.

Maybe even hated what she had deteriorated to.

And then an invisible force raised his left hand, still gripping his Master Sword as the only lifeline to sanity, tugged him across the span of the room and, of its own accord, delivered a blow to his strange chameleon mask so powerful Link felt his bones jar and the floor shudder more violently than ever before.

With a blow of light on the filth of darkness -_Twilight_, Link reminded himself-, Midna's three coveted Fused Shadows clattered from Zant's sorcerous storage to the charred, serrated ground. They lay in blood and dirt for not a second before they floated upwards and towards Midna, their rightful wielder, and Link felt his heart plummet as they circled her, orbiting her so _naturally_, as if she should rightfully be bestowed such gifts of power when that crazed grin fixated on Zant so only promised terrors unspoken, phantasms of nightmares of so much greater strength than what Midna had inadvertently revealed to him. And _still she laughed that insane laugh, was she completely unaware that she had become her enemy?_

Gurgling, slouched lifelessly on the throne Zant held so dear, one eye slashed open and bleeding, lively and lifeless orange eyes staring into nothing, breathlessly screaming that Midna would never win, never never, and he had won and he would rise again, and suddenly he lifted his unsightly bloody head with his broken neck to stare up into nothingness, gaze in awe at a god only he saw, and _smile_ with madly pulsating eyes as _Midna's hair launched itself at that SHIT in a countless flurry of spears, impaling him, stabbing him, ripping him apart from the outside in and then suddenly from the INSIDE OUT as the spears tore at his intestines and innards and twisted them, squeezed the blood out of them in slick wet spouts and he was INFLATING for the love of the Three Goddesses and he was SCREAMING something more horrible than anything Link had heard yet and Midna was screaming with him in wordless rage but LAUGHING because that BASTARD was DYING and it was ALL SHE EVER WANTED and SWEET FUCKING GODS, PURE ECSTACY!_

And then pieces of Zant were flying in in every direction, coating Midna in a layer of blood and bodily fluids and body parts and that grin _still wasn't off her face_, even with her broken arms and slashed front and singed legs, even as the roof finally caved in and sent a slab of stone crashing down deafeningly in front of her, and all she could do was gasp and _weakly laugh _because Zant was dead and she had her Fused Shadows and her trial was almost over, and as the entirely of the Palace cascaded to the meager ground on which it stood in a shower of blood and dead monster bodies and stone and dirt, all she could do was _fucking laugh_.

"Link..." she muttered later as her Twili attendants came out from hiding and attended to their beloved Princess, revered even in her hideous imp form, "Now is the time! We must save Zelda!"

Her eye was half-shut, staring at him with fondness, with sanity, as her doctors fussed over her broken arms and lacerations. The smile she bore was weary, and absent of vicious little teeth, but but even as she spoke Zelda's name and declared theirs a righteous crusade, Link knew that the faceless image of Ganondorf plagued her mind, the benefactor of Zant's power, the catalyst behind her curse, her dethroning, her hardship. And she was out for revenge.

"The evil power Zant was wielding... I couldn't take it from him, but at least I still have the magic of my ancestors," she trailed, lost in thought. Thoughts of how her ancestor's power would bring Ganondorf to his knees just as absolutely as it had to Zant. She must be bitter, Link thought, to not have Zant's evil power on top of her own, to use as she pleased against Ganondorf and regale herself with the irony of it all. Of course she would want that power, simply because it was power. Midna, the antithesis to Link, Zelda, Zant, and Ganondorf, resembled them all.

Which was why she completely and utterly destroyed the barrier around the castle that absolutely resonated with saturated power, smirking at her handiwork when she was done. Which was why she plowed mercilessly through the haunted halls of Hyrule Castle, throttling twice as many monsters as Link with a hundred times as many gleeful snickers. Which was why, when their exhausting climb deposited them at the entrance to the cavernous chamber of the throne room at the top of the tower at the throne room of the Castle amid the clouds, when they confronted three ivory beheaded Goddesses and a prisoner Zelda encased in their most holy relic, when they finally, _finally_ came face-to-face with the enigma known as the man Ganondorf, Midna held Link back with an outstretched arm and all the authority in the world; and Link didn't even need to take one glance at the companion next to him to know what kind of sick, sadistic smile would be on her face as images of blood and gore flashed before her eyes as she coolly greeted the King of All Evil.

"I've been _dying_ to meet you."

* * *

Oh, that line is _delicious... _it could have had so much potential in-game, but _no_...

So, um, yeah. Sorry about the fail!horror and reeeally long run-on sentence... wow... six whole lines...

Higurashi ForTheEpicWin~

It must be the fact that it's October, because I'm spewing out Random Horrific Oneshots instead of Random Humorous Oneshots...

Either way, I hope you enjoyed this!


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